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Wednesday, Mar 25 2015

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Health Law Worries Include Slowing Enrollment, Fewer Work Hours

The health law is also leaving its mark on new taxes for high-cost insurance plans and may be hindering government transparency. Elsewhere, a Democrat introduces legislation to repeal the medical device tax and Latinos speak about their experiences with the law.

In Obamacare鈥檚 first two years, enrollment reached more than 11.7 million people鈥攕urprising skeptics and putting the law on pace to reach its goal of enrolling 21 million Americans in health coverage by 2016. While this is good news for the administration (and the millions of people who now have health insurance), some experts are afraid that Obamacare may soon hit peak enrollment. (Ehley, 3/24)

The Affordable Care Act, signed by President Obama five years ago this week, sparked a host of changes. For some workers, the law鈥檚 legacy amounts to fewer hours of paid work. The law鈥檚 requirement that larger employers provide affordable insurance to workers putting in 30-plus hour weeks has led some companies to cap the number of hours employees can log. A new survey out Tuesday from the Society for Human Resource Management finds that 14% of employers have cut back on hours for part-time employees, and an additional 6% plan to do so. The survey, which included more than 740 human resources professionals, found that a small subset of companies were considering reducing hours for full-time employees too. (Feintzeig, 3/25)

Detroit鈥檚 negotiations this summer to reach a new four-year labor deal won鈥檛 just be an argument about wages. Generous health-care benefits for about 135,000 unionized factory workers are at risk of being cut to prepare for the Affordable Care Act鈥檚 鈥淐adillac鈥 tax. Health care has long been a fiercely protected benefit for United Auto Worker members, remaining generous even as the union has made other concessions. But the so-called Cadillac tax on companies with high-cost health plans is scheduled to take effect in 2018. (Rogers, 3/24)

A heavy workload caused by the Affordable Care Act, government technology limits and staff shortages are causing unusually long delays in filling public records requests, federal health officials say. The waits in some cases could stretch out a decade or more. The Freedom of Information Act requires federal agencies to respond to records requests in 20 working days, though providing documents often takes much longer. The FBI, for instance, recently reported that complex requests could average more than two years to fill. (Schulte, 3/24)

Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, introduced legislation Tuesday to repeal the 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices, a two-year-old levy that has been the target of a national industry with a strong presence in the state. (Weisman, 3/24)

On health, the Affordable Care Act has considerably boosted insurance coverage among Latinos, yet many were still not familiar with key aspects of the law. (Lilley, 3/24)

And one lawmaker's floor speech聽on the health law is聽scrutinized --

First of all, let鈥檚 start with the numbers that [Rep. Pete] Sessions cited on the floor. He claimed that the cost of insuring 12 million people would be $108 billion. Then he did some 鈥渟imple multiplication鈥 and came up with a figure of $5 million per newly insured person. Actually, if you divide $108 billion by 12 million, you end up with $9,000 a person. That鈥檚 a pretty big difference. We might understand why $5 million would be 鈥渋mmoral鈥 or 鈥渦nconscionable,鈥 as Sessions thundered in his speech, but it turns out to be less than 1/500th of that amount. (Kessler, 3/25)

This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
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